Of the two dozen people who spoke at a public hearing for the parking plan yesterday, all but two opposed the plan.
Much of the opposition came from people who said they were worried parking will be expensive, but the city manager’s office says it will take three years for
parking rates to go up in Downtown and six years for rates to go up in neighborhoods after an initial hike
to 75 cents. CityBeat covered the parking plan in detail here.

Cincinnati officials are now saying that a freestanding restroom could cost as low as $35,000.
Officials say the public restroom is needed to accommodate growing
activity and population in Over-the-Rhine and Downtown. Some critics
were initially worried that the facility would cost $100,000.

Cincinnati’s Horseshoe Casino will partner up
with the Cincinnati Police Department to keep out cheats and prevent
theft. The casino will also have advanced surveillance equipment,
allowing them to detect anyone around the casino before they even get
into the building. It may seem like a lot, but casinos do tend to
attract cheaters and other troublemakers, according to Ohio Casino
Control Commission Director of Enforcement Karen Huey. The Horseshoe
Casino is set to open March 4.

A report from the Governors Highway Safety Association found more teen drivers died in crashes this year than the last two,
and some officials fear wireless devices may be a leading cause. In
Ohio, the six-month grace period for the teen wireless ban expires
Friday, which will allow police officers to issue tickets instead of
warnings to teenagers using any wireless devices while driving.

Gov. John Kasich’s budget proposal would cut back a state-funded college internship program, which awarded $11 million to universities around the state.

The University of Cincinnati got a $2.3 million grant
from the National Cancer Institute to train cancer researchers. “Our
emphasis is on training the next generation of cancer researchers to
translate basic science discoveries into improved patient care,” Susan
Waltz, co-principal investigator of the grant and professor of cancer
biology at the UC College of Medicine, said in a statement.

Cincinnati’s plan to lease parking assets to the Port of Greater Cincinnati Development Authority remains on hold
as a lawsuit arguing the law should be subject to referendum works
through the Hamilton County Common Pleas Court. The legal dispute is
focused on City Council’s use of the emergency clause, which eliminates a
30-day waiting period on implementing laws and takes away the
possibility of a referendum. Emergency clauses are routinely deployed in
City Council, but opponents of the parking plan say that doesn’t make
them right.

Whether the parking deal does go through or not, the Tower Place Mall renovations will be carried out. The city originally included the renovations as part of the plan, but Meg Olberding, city spokesperson, told The Cincinnati Enquirer
that the city is planning on selling the the property to a subsidiary
of JDL Warm Construction for an undisclosed sum, and the company will
then pay an estimated $5 million for the redevelopment.

Gov. John Kasich’s plan to expand the sales tax to fund tax cuts is being heavily criticized by some members of the business community, but Rep.
Ron Amstutz, chairman of the Ohio House Finance & Appropriations
Committee, says he is looking into ways to save the proposal. Kasich’s plan would expand the
application of the sales tax to include more services, including cable
TV and admission to sport events, but it would lower the sales tax rate
from 5.5 percent to 5 percent and carry out 20-percent across-the-board
income tax cuts. CityBeat wrote about Kasich’s budget proposal in further detail here.

As part of Kasich’s education plans, the state’s school voucher program is expanding
to help students meet a Third Grade Reading Guarantee, which requires third-graders pass a test in reading proficiency before they
can move onto fourth grade. Supporters argue the voucher program provides more choice
and control for parents, but opponents say the state should not be
paying for private educations. A previous Policy Matters Ohio report
found expanded school choice through more vouchers can have negative effects on education, including worse results for students and teachers.

State Auditor Dave Yost is pushing for a full audit of
JobsOhio, the publicly funded private, nonprofit agency, but Republican
state legislators are joining Kasich
in opposition. The opposing Republicans say the state auditor can track
any public funds used for JobsOhio, but they say the agency is allowed to
keep its private funds under wraps. Kasich says he plans to replace the
Ohio Department of Development, which can be fully audited by the state auditor at any time,
with JobsOhio.

The Ohio Department of Education apparently knew or should have known of ongoing data scrubbing in schools as early as 2008, according to The Toledo Blade. Emails acquired by The Blade
show officials analyzed and discussed data reports that year after
media reports detailed how urban districts excluded thousands of test
scores on state report cards.

Supporters of the Anna Louise Inn gathered Friday
in celebration of International Women’s Day and to stand against
Western & Southern’s repeated efforts to run the Inn out of the
neighborhood.

The U.S. Census Bureau says Cincinnati commutes are much shorter than the national average,
with only 2.9 percent of Cincinnatians spending more than 60 minutes
one-way during their commute, as compared to the 8.1 percent national
average.

City says official details, contracts will be ready before City Council vote

City Hall will host public hearings about the city manager’s
parking and economic development plan today, but the hearings will take
place before the public knows all the official details. Meg Olberding,
city spokesperson, says the legal documents and contracts for the deal
aren’t ready to be released yet, but they will be ready before City
Council holds a vote.

“We’re still finalizing the documents,” Olberding says.
“These are long, complicated documents, so we want to make sure they’re
done right, and we’ll put them online as soon as they’re available.”

When the documents are released, they will include
Cincinnati’s deal with the Port of Greater Cincinnati Development
Authority, but they will not divulge specifics on the Port Authority’s
contracts with AEW, Xerox, Denison and Guggenheim — the four private
companies partnering with the Port Authority to manage city’s parking
assets.

Without the full details, mayoral candidate John Cranley,
who opposes the parking plan, says he’s concerned the public is going
into the deal blind: “Why are they having public hearings before giving
the contract to the public and giving us the exact details? What they do
is sit back and selectively give information.”

The lack of details has already led to some surprises since the parking proposal was announced to the public. On Feb. 21, Olberding told CityBeat
the city will be able to bypass the so-called cap on parking meter rate
increases through unanimous vote from a five-person advisory committee, approval from the city manager and a final nod from
the Port Authority. The process, which begins with an advisory committee that will include four members appointed by the Port Authority and one selected by
the city manager, will allow the city to raise and lower the cap in case of changing economic needs, says Olberding.

Under the initial plan, parking meter rates will be
set to increase annually by 3 percent or the rate of inflation on a
compounded basis, with any increases coming in 25-cents-an-hour increments. That
should translate to 25-cent increases every three years for Downtown and
every six years for neighborhoods, says Olberding.

City Manager Milton Dohoney Jr. unveiled his parking
proposal on Feb. 19, promising $92 million upfront and an additional $3
million a year to pay off the city’s budget deficits for 2014 and 2015,
build a 30-story high-rise Downtown with a grocery store and 300 luxury
apartments, renovate Tower Place Mall and complete the I-71/MLK
Interchange project (“City Manager Proposes Parking, Economic Development Plan,” issue of Feb. 20).

Conservative group claims city manager exceeded authority with changes

In a letter to the city solicitor, a conservative organization is threatening more legal action to stop the city’s plans to lease its parking meters, lots and garages to the Greater Cincinnati Port Authority.

The Coalition Opposed to Additional Spending and Taxes (COAST) claims the city manager made “significant and material” changes to the lease agreement after City Council approved the deal in March. That, the letter states, exceeds the city manager’s authority.

The two changes in question: First, the city changed the original June 30 deadline for issuing bonds that will finance the deal to a less specific 90-day period that will kick in once the agreement is in full effect. Second, the city added sections that allow the Port to review and potentially terminate the lease within 75 days.

The changes were made after another legal challenge delayed the lease’s implementation.

The letter asks City Solicitor John Curp to review the allegations and sue the city. If he doesn’t, COAST would gain the legal standing necessary under Ohio law to sue the city by itself.

“The law requires that before a lawyer can sue the city and ask taxpayers to pay his fees he must send a letter of this type,” Curp explained in an email.

Curp also wrote that the city will review the allegations and respond within a month.

“Today’s letter is an attempt to comply with part of the legal process that would allow the authors to claim attorneys fees from taxpayers,” he wrote. “The Law Department will review the issues raised, attempt to engage the authors constructively and respond appropriately. The policy of the Law Department is to defend aggressively against claims from lawyers that seek taxpayers dollars to fund their litigation against the City of Cincinnati.”

COAST is pursuing the legal challenge as a longtime critic of the parking lease. The organization supported the previous lawsuit against the lease, which an appeals court struck down.

The letter comes in the middle of another controversy over a June 20 memo that the city administration kept from the public, Port Authority and City Council for three-plus weeks, until council members and media outlets enquired about it. The
memo suggested the city is getting a bad deal from the lease agreement.
Port and city officials argue the memo made technical errors and used
outdated information.

Under the parking lease, the city will receive a $92 million lump sum and at least $3 million in annual payments, according to city estimates.

Supporters of the parking lease argue it’s needed to raise funds for development projects and modernize the city’s parking services.

Opponents say the lease gives up too much control over the city’s parking meters, lots and garages and will hurt businesses downtown by causing meter rates and operation hours to go up.

Even though it’s now illegal under local and state law, texting while driving often eludes punishment
in Greater Cincinnati. The Hamilton County Sheriff’s Department has
issued no tickets so far to vehicular texters, while the Cincinnati
Police Department has given out 28, with only four going to teenagers.
Although almost everyone acknowledges the dangers of texting while
driving, police say it’s very difficult to catch texters in the act,
especially since most of them claim they were just making phone calls.

Otto Budig, board chairman of the Greater Cincinnati Port Authority, apparently told The Cincinnati Enquirer that the Port Authority won’t sign the parking lease
until it gets assurances about city funding. City Council considered pulling $100,000 from the Port
Authority while putting together the budget for fiscal year 2014. Now,
Budig says the Port Authority wants some sort of financial assurance,
perhaps as part of the parking lease, that the city won’t threaten
future funding. The city announced Tuesday it had signed the lease, but some opponents, including Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld, are still looking for ways to repeal the plan.

A Policy Matters Ohio report found the state’s tax code remains complicated
under the Ohio Senate budget plan and the budget actually added tax breaks, despite earlier promises of simplification from House and Senate leaders. Meanwhile, Mike Dittoe, spokesperson
for Ohio House Republicans, says the General Assembly will take up tax
reform later in the year. The Ohio Department of Taxation says the tax breaks will cost Ohio nearly $8 billion in fiscal year 2015, and Policy Matters says many of the exemptions, deductions and credits are wasteful.

JobsOhio topped a ranking
from Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) that looks at government
agencies’ “unrelenting commitment to undermining the public's right to
know.” IRE mocked JobsOhio and the state Republicans for making it
increasingly difficult to find out how the agency uses its public funds.
Democrats, including gubernatorial candidate Ed FitzGerald, have also criticized
Republicans for blocking a public audit of JobsOhio, which was
established by Gov. John Kasich and Republican legislators in 2011 to
eventually replace the public Ohio Department of Development. JobsOhio’s
supporters argue the agency’s privatized, secret nature allows it to move
at the “speed of business” to better boost the economy.

The Cincinnati Museum Center is looking to ask Hamilton County residents to renew its operating levy
in May 2014, even though the museum promised in 2009 that it wouldn’t
do so. The museum argues circumstances have changed, with Union Terminal
crumbling and in need of about $163 million in repairs. When the museum
originally made its promise against more operating levies, it was
expecting to make repairs through a capital levy, but Hamilton County
commissioners dismissed that idea. Hamilton County commissioners will
have to approve the operating levy before it goes on the ballot.

Boston and surrounding communities went through another night of terror and chaos
last night, with the two Boston Marathon bombing suspects allegedly rampaging
through the city just hours after their photos were released to the
public by authorities. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the suspects, died
after apparently suffering multiple wounds from a police shootout and
what’s now believed to have been an explosion, but his brother, Dzhokhar
Tsarnaev, 19, remains at large while a massive manhunt is underway.
Authorities are telling people in Boston and the surrounding area to
stay indoors as the manhunt continues.

Before approving the budget bill in a 61-35 vote, the Ohio House voted to remove an amendment from the bill that would have banned comprehensive sex education in a 76-19 vote
yesterday, which CityBeat covered in further detail here. Still, the budget bill contains language that would defund Planned Parenthood
and redirect other funding to abstinence-only, anti-abortion crisis
pregnancy centers. The budget bill was also amended to ask for a
Medicaid waiver that give Ohio more time to mull over a Medicaid expansion and could lead to a revamp of the state-backed health care program. The budget bill must now be approved by the Ohio Senate and Gov. John Kasich.

Ohio’s unemployment rate was 7.1 percent in March,
unchanged from February’s revised rate and a small drop from 7.4
percent in March 2012. The number of people unemployed rose by 1,000,
while the amount of people employed dropped by 20,400. March was also a
weak month for the U.S. jobs report, so Ohio’s numbers may be following a
nationwide slowdown. Jobs in manufacturing, mining and logging,
financial activities and trade, transportation and utilities increased,
while other areas dropped by varying degrees.

On the two-year anniversary of his death, the lawsuit for David “Bones” Hebert has been expanded
to include the city of Cincinnati and three Cincinnati
Police officers. Since he was killed by
police in 2011, Bones has built a following that wants to bring what
they perceive as justice to his death.

A state representative announced he will run against
Ohio Sen. Rob Portman in 2016 because of Portman’s vote against a
federal gun control bill. State Rep. Bob Hagan wrote on Facebook,
”Senator Portman shows his lack of courage and testicular fortitude. The
NRA Owns him. I am declaring my candidacy for US Senate to run against
him in the next election. I will be his hair shirt for the next three
years.” A poll from The New York Times and CBS found about 92 percent of Americans support universal background checks, the major policy proposal in the gun control bill.

A new app allows Icelanders to make sure their hookups don’t qualify as accidental incest.

Kasich gives State of the State, Dohoney's parking plan, county rejects bridge tolls

Gov. John Kasich gave his State of the State speech
yesterday. Kasich focused on his budget proposal and jobs, and he
urged lawmakers to take up the Medicaid expansion. Cleveland’s The Plain Dealer has a thorough report on the speech here. CityBeat gave an in-depth look at Kasich’s budget in this week’s cover story here.

City Manager Milton Dohoney Jr. proposed an ambitious parking and economic development plan
yesterday. The 30-year plan, which Dohoney called a “public-public
partnership,” will lease the city’s parking assets to the Port of
Greater Cincinnati Development Authority to fund more than $100 million
in projects around the city, including the I-71/MLK Interchange, Tower
Place Mall and a high-rise that will house a downtown grocery store. As
part of the deal, the city will retain control over parking rates,
operation hours and the placement of meters.

The Kenton County Fiscal Court unanimously voted against tolls
to pay for the Brent Spence Bridge project, reports WVXU. County
residents are concerned the tolls will be a financial drain for
commuters and travelers, but finding other sources of funding for the project has been an ongoing struggle.

An Ohio woman claims she was fired after voting for President Barack Obama in the 2012 election, reports Dayton Daily News.
Patricia Kunkle’s lawsuit claims her former employer, Roberta “Bobbie”
Gentile of Q-Mark Inc., threatened to fire workers if Obama won election
and that Obama supporters would be first on the list.

John Cranley, former Democratic council member, will
formally launch his mayoral campaign today. The kick-off will be at 20th
Century Theater in Oakley at 5:30 p.m. Cranley’s main opponent will
most likely be Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls, a fellow Democrat. The two
Democrats have split on one issue: the streetcar. Qualls supports it,
while Cranley is against it. CityBeat covered the streetcar and how it relates to the mayor’s race here.

The University of Cincinnati is conducting research for how to locate food deserts, reports the Business Courier.
Professor Michael Widener is looking at where people live and work,
with a focus on how many people are able to stop by a grocery store
after a workday.

Failing to yield caused 37,475 crashes in 2012,
according to the Ohio State Highway Patrol. Altogether, the crashes
killed 187 people and injured 23,353. Young drivers, aged 16 to 25, were at
fault for 30 percent of the crashes — nearly twice as high as those aged
26 to 35, who caused 16 percent of accidents. The full county-by-county
report is available here.

The Hamilton County Court of Appeals refused to delay enforcement
of its earlier ruling on the city’s plan to lease its parking meters,
lots and garages to the Greater Cincinnati Port Authority, which will
allow the city administration to sign the lease as soon as a lower court
rescinds its original injunction on the plan. Six out of nine City
Council members say they want to repeal or rework the deal, but City
Solicitor John Curp says Mayor Mark Mallory, who supports the plan, has
the power to hold any repeal attempts until Nov. 30, which means he can
effectively stop any repeal attempts until the end of his final term as
mayor.

City Manager Milton Dohoney told City Council yesterday that the state government will not pay for the I-71/MLK Interchange
if the city doesn’t pick up some of the cost. Dohoney made the
statement when explaining how he would use the $92 million upfront money
from the parking plan. The interchange project has long been sought out by city and state officials to create jobs and better connect uptown businesses to the rest of the area and state.

State officials told The Cincinnati Enquirer the final budget plan may include downsized versions of the tax cut plans
in the Ohio House and Senate budget bills. The House bill
included a 7-percent across-the-board income tax cut, while the Senate bill included a 50-percent income tax deduction for business
owners worth up to $375,000 worth of income. Democrats have criticized the
across-the-board income tax cut for cutting taxes for the wealthy and the
business tax cut for giving a tax cut to passive
investors, single-person firms and partnerships that are unlikely to add
jobs. Republicans claim both tax cuts will spur the economy and create jobs.

Ohio ranked No. 46 out of the 50 states for job creation
in the past year, according to an infographic from Pew Charitable
Trusts. Both Ohio and Alaska increased their employment levels by 0.1
percent. The three states below Ohio and Alaska — Wisconsin, Maine and
Wyoming — had a drop in employment ranging from 0.2 percent to 0.5
percent.

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted announced 8,229 new entities filed to do business in Ohio in May, up from 7,687 the year before.

StateImpact Ohio has an ongoing series about “value-added,” a state-sanctioned method of measuring teacher performance,here. The investigation has already raised questions
about whether value-added is the “great equalizer” it was originally
made out to be — or whether it largely benefits affluent school
districts.

The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency awarded $5,690 to the Cincinnati Nature Center
for its teacher training program Nature in the Classroom. The grant
will help continue the program’s goals of training first through
eighth grade teachers about local natural history, how to implement a
science-based nature curriculum and how to engage students in exploring
and investigating nature.

During Gov. John Kasich’s term as governor, local
government funding has fallen by nearly half — from nearly $3 billion to
about $1.6 billion — and Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld is leading an effort to get that funding back.
With the support of Democratic officials from around the state,
Sittenfeld is launching a website called ProtectMyOhio.com, which is
gathering petition signatures that will eventually be sent to Kasich and
members of the Ohio General Assembly.

Hamilton County Judge Robert Winkler extended the temporary restraining order
on the city’s parking plan yesterday, potentially delaying any ruling
on the city's plan to lease its parking assets to the Port of Greater
Cincinnati Development Authority for another two weeks. In response, the city said
it’s approaching a “pressure point” for budget cuts for fiscal year
2014, which must be executed by July 1.

City Council did not vote on funding
for a feasibility study for Westwood Square Wednesday, but the vote
could happen as early as next week. The delay came after the Westwood
Civic Association said in a letter that the plan needs more discussion.

The controversial election bill moved through
the Ohio House yesterday despite calls for more time for debate. The
bill, which will now head to Kasich to be signed into law, limits the
referendum process by giving referendum and ballot initiative
petitioners 10 days to get more signatures if the initial batch is found
to be inadequate. Under current law, petitioners can continually search
for more signatures while the secretary of state and ballot board sort
through signatures. Republicans argue the change makes the petition
process fair and uniform, but Democrats say it goes too far in weakening ballot initiative
and referendum powers.

The state’s $7.6 billion transportation budget, which
includes plan to fund transportation projects around the state with Ohio
Turnpike funds, breezed through the Ohio Senate Wednesday. It will reach the House for a scheduled vote today.

Attorney General Mike DeWine announced new efforts to help sexual assault victims around Ohio by ensuring each county has
adequate services. The efforts are in response to a survey that found
59 percent of counties don’t have comprehensive services and eight
counties have very few or no services. “It is our goal to ensure that a
quick and compassionate emergency response is available to any victim of
sexual assault at any time of the day, any day of the week and in any
area of the state,” DeWine said in a statement.

The federal government released data that shows
serious safety violations in hospitals that occurred since Jan. 1, 2011,
and the University of Cincinnati Medical Center and Christ Hospital are
both on the list.

Hamilton County ranked No. 65 out of Ohio’s 88 counties
for health in a new survey from Patrick Remington at the University of Wisconsin
School of Medicine. The study found suburban counties fare much better
than urban counties, and premature death is at a 20-year low.

Accusations of inappropriate teacher behavior in Ohio are on the rise.

New documents acquired by The Cincinnati Enquirer show the Greater Cincinnati Port Authority wants $27 million of the city’s $92 million parking lease.
The Port Authority, a city-funded development agency, says it would use
the money for various projects around the city. The request, which has
been supported by Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls, may explain why the Port
Authority inexplicably took four days to sign its lease agreement with the city:
It wanted some of the money for itself. The city is leasing its parking
meters, lots and garages to the Port Authority, which will then hire
various private operators from around the country to manage the assets.
The deal will provide $92 million up front and at least $3 million a
year afterward, which the city plans to use for development projects and
to plug budget gaps.

Ohio lost the No. 2 most jobs in the nation last month, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That pushed the state unemployment rate to 7.2 percent in June, up from 7 percent in May, the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services
found. The state lost 12,500 jobs in June, with the private sector
showing losses across the board. The month’s big losses mean the state
has only added 15,000 jobs in the past year, even though the state
actually topped job growth in May with more than 32,000 new jobs. In
June, Pew Charitable Trusts found Ohio was the No. 46 state for job growth between April 2012 and April this year.

Gov. John Kasich says he wants to further cut state taxes to reduce the bracket for the wealthiest Ohioans
to less than 5 percent. Such a cut could require raising regressive
taxes that put more of a burden on the state’s poorest, such as the
sales tax. The latest two-year state budget, which Kasich signed into
law, did just that, as CityBeatpreviously covered:
It cut income taxes in a way that favored the wealthy, then it raised
sales taxes in a way that forced the lowest-income Ohioans to pay more.

A report released yesterday suggests Ohio taxpayers could be on the hook for costs
if something goes wrong at an oil and gas drilling operation. The
Environment Ohio report finds the state’s regulations on “fracking,” an
oil and gas extraction process, require too little financial assurance
from drilling companies to dissuade dangerous risks. In Ohio, fracking
well operators are required to secure $5,000 in upfront bonds per well, but even those payments can be avoided through regulatory
loopholes. At the same time, damage caused by fracking can cost
communities and the state millions of dollars, and simply reclaiming the
well and its property can cost hundreds of thousands.

Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters says he wouldn’t have prosecuted George Zimmerman,
the man who shot and killed an unarmed black 17-year-old last year in
Florida. Zimmerman was found not guilty of manslaughter and
second-degree murder by a jury on July 13 after he claimed self-defense.

A lack of local access to healthy foods was linked to higher obesity rates
in a study released yesterday. That could be troubling news for
Avondale and other Cincinnati neighborhoods that are deemed “food
deserts,” areas that don’t have reasonable access to healthy foods. CityBeat covered the efforts of some city officials, including Councilwoman Laure Quinlivan, to end food deserts here.

The American Civil Liberties Union is asking Ohio to avoid shutting off electricity in state prisons,
calling the practice “dangerous” as temperatures approach 100
degrees. Ohio’s prisons have already shut down electricity twice in the
afternoon this week and relied on backup generators. The shutdowns are commonly deployed as part of a power
agreement that’s generated $1.3 million for the state since 2010.